Re: force apt-get to ignore broken dependencies

[olfdur@gmx.net]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:03:53 +1100 Sam Watkins <swatkins@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 14, 2004 at 06:23:07PM +0100, olfdur@gmx.net wrote:
> > i want to have 2 different ftp servers running but apt-get refuses to install
> > them due to conflicts and i don't like the idea of using dpkg for further
> > package management.
> 
> What ftp servers are you trying to run together?  what are the conflicts?
> 
> I suggest try to build them from source (use apt-get source, and debuild from
> devscripts) and figure out a way to avoid the conflicts.  If there's a general way to do it, perhaps you could contribute patches back to the maintainers.  If you let me know what packages have the conflicts I may be able to help.
> 
> 
> Sam


  pure-ftpd conflicts with ftp-server
  pure-ftpd provides ftp-server

i have pure-ftpd installed and i want to try out other servers. but this is just an example. 
sometimes it's necessary to break dependencies. one way to ignore dependencies is to download the pkg manually and use dpkg -i --force-... to install it. but the next time you use apt-get it tries to remove the pkg even if it is on hold and that makes apt-get impossible to use if you have unmet dependencies.

i think in a former version of apt-get it was possible to set an pkg to hold and thus forcing apt-get to leave the pkg untouched but unfortunately this doesn't work anymore.

so i need to know if there is a simple way to get apt-get to ignore pkgs with unmet deps.

best regards,
  stefan